George001

I’ll believe it when I see the snow falling. This keeps happening, the models show big snows a week out and then the rug pull happens in the short range. Can’t even trust it even 1 day out, the gfs and euro had me getting a fairly significant storm last time and I only got a minor snowfall.

Agree that it’s a good ice storm setup. The 12z eps for Feb 2nd during the first part of the storm has surface temps in the 20s and the 850s are +4-5C AN

Another thing I noticed looking at the snow records is that snowfall outside of winter used to be more common. In the late 1800s, there was a 10 year stretch where Boston recorded an inch or more of snow in November 5 years. Boston apparently recorded 17.8 inches of snow in November of 1898, and the previous November had 8.1 inches. That is mind blowing to me, a rarity back then, likely impossible now.

I thought I understood what Tip was talking about in terms of the human psychology and many forms of climate change denial, from full blown brain damage levels of denial to simply underestimating its reach, but I didn’t. I think it finally clicked for me, the whole false narrative about how cold this winter has been…. one that I fell into myself, relying on my senses rather than the actual facts, that IS a form of soft denial. When it’s super obvious like hitting 80 degrees in Feb, that’s a different story. But cold snaps being a little less cold over time, warm stretches being a little longer….. all these little things. Our senses don’t detect them. I don’t know if it’s our subconscious not wanting to face the reality of HOW fucked we are or something else, but it’s clear that there is some kind of bias rooted in human nature that leads to society as a whole underestimating climate change. I’m disappointed in myself for allowing myself to succumb to climate change denial of ANY form. I should know better, we all should. The narrative about how frigid this winter has been, it’s all a lie. The comparisons to 13-14, that’s bullshit too.

This is a good reminder that as “cold” as this winter has been, it really has only been slightly BN. AGW has skewed our perspective, a slightly below normal winter feels like we entered the ice box because it’s been so fucking warm the past decade. I’m guilty of this myself, having referred to December as a cold month and January as “frigid”. Our senses may lie, but the data doesn’t. Our climate is changing right under our noses and we just sort of adjust to it, it becomes the new normal. Really, it puts things in perspective the extent climate change has progressed.

It really has been awful. Northern energy doesn’t dig as much as it used to.

This is what bothers me more than anything. You can make up a snow deficit very quickly with the right pattern in late January into mid Feb. But in good winters we are consistently tracking 1-2 threats inside 7 days during the late Jan-mid Feb period. If we are looking to the long range for hope in late Jan, no way around it that is bad news. 1 clipper threat and nothing else over the next 10 days doesn’t really move the needle.

This is killing us in New England too. Unlike areas farther south, we need more than just one big storm to get to average snowfall. Actually, the lack of clippers has been a problem for a while and has been getting worse and worse over the years.

I get it, I did the same last winter. If you are already checking out I take it you aren’t buying the optimism for this upcoming pattern. I still track even when things look objectively bad because I’m a huge weenie, but if things don’t get better I’ll likely end my winter tracking a month early (usually track until early April). It does get old chasing ghost after ghost with nothing to show for it, even for me. Personally I am of the opinion we had our HECS window 1/11-1/12, and whiffed.

I was optimistic at first, I got really sucked in by the cold and stuck to my guns on that for a while. I initially thought it was just bad luck, we would eventually get hit but then I realized I misread the pattern. The 7 day ensemble mean tells the story, very dry look with BN precip until you roll it forward to 2 weeks. All the “epic” looks leading to whiff after whiff, and now we are in peak snow climo and tracking what is likely another day 10 ghost. In average or good winters you don’t have these extended lull periods during peak climo. You would expect to have 1-2 threats inside 7 days for a 3 or so week period during the heart of winter. We don’t have that

The lower end of the snowfall prediction for Boston looks pretty good right now. Based on how the first half of winter has gone and looking at guidance the next couple of weeks, I’m thinking my 30-40 inch prediction for Boston will bust high. Somewhere in the mid 20s as a final total seems like a fairly reasonable estimate at this point.

My concern is that the dry pattern remains on guidance even as we go from deep cold to more seasonal temps. My hope was that we would see the SE ridge flex, shift the storm track north and get hit fairly hard late Jan into Feb. but guidance doesn’t show that happening. It more goes from cold and dry to seasonal and dry.

Look at the 7 day precip mean on the ensembles…. Fairly dry look for the next 15 days or so. Unfortunately this dry pattern appears to be somewhat locked in. It looks warmer than Jan temp wise, but not a real torch. More of the back and forth we saw in December. Still, not what you want to see during peak snowfall climo. I would say it’s an unfavorable overall look for snow relative to climo. I’m not done tracking storms, but at this point I am throwing in the towel on trying to look for a path to an AN snow winter. We are at the point where 70-80% of average snow is a realistic high end outcome.

Looks like we are looking at a gradient pattern setting up for early Feb

It isn’t a good thing for us when the Deep South is getting buried, very suppressive pattern.

I don’t know about that. The MJO plots have it briefly going into phase 4 (relaxation period early Feb?) and then potentially into the cold phases again. My biggest concern is that we will see more of the same, cold and dry. That has been the pattern the first half of winter, often these patterns have a tendency to lock in. Honestly think there is a decent chance we finish the winter with both below normal temps and below normal snowfall, which is very rare especially with the acceleration of climate change. We have seen a tendency towards warm/wet as AGW progresses. It is unfortunate that this cold pattern has not been a snowy one, as cold winters like this are becoming rarer and rarer as our climate warms. It would be nice to capitalize on it and snow when we do get cold weather.

Eyeballing 5 inches or so here

Radar looks pretty good. I was nervous when I saw the temps earlier and was thinking this would be a bust for my area. Hoping the NWS had the right idea sticking to their guns calling for 6-8 inches here. I would be happy with that.

Looks like this is turning into more of an interior event

Its worse than that, I’m worried we will end up getting another shitty 2-4 inch event. The NWS is forecasting 6-8 inches here, it needs to cool off FAST for that to happen. Unacceptable performance from guidance this close in. The Euro had 8+ for us just yesterday.

I’m concerned about the temps to start, they are warmer than modeled. Im concerned that we are staring down yet another rug pull, guidance was consistent giving me 6+ over the past day or so, but with these starting temps I don’t know about that. Very disappointing

Severe thunderstorms?

Gfs is a burial

Looks like the goalposts have narrowed. The SE of benchmark track and inland runner track are out, now the question is does the low go right over the benchmark or does it track inside the benchmark and go over the cape?

Yeah I’m feeling good about this one. This will likely be the biggest storm since the Jan 2022 blizzard here, and there are more threats in the pipeline.